Winter miles.....

milese

I'd like to give racing my best shot next season, so obviously want to do as much as I can over winter.

What sort of weekly mileage should I be aiming for?

I reckon I should be able to do 150 miles, which would be a mix of commuting (15-20 miles a day, varied between easy and 10 mile TT), mid week group rides (upto 2 x 30 miles, reasonable pace), weekend group / solo rides, and sufferfest turbo sessions when the weather is bad.

How does that sound? Any other winter training advice / tips would be great.

Once we get into the new year, I'll probably start the time crunched training plan.

I'm going to start it off with an intensive rest period; off to Cyrpus on Wed!

softlad

anything between 100-600 miles per week will be fine....

Seriously, it mainly depends on you and how well you respond to training input, as well as the time you have available. There is no fixed amount of mileage which makes a racer....

Pokerface

softlad wrote:

anything between 100-600 miles per week will be fine....

I thought you had to do 1000 miles a week to get a really good 'base'?? 8)

ride_whenever

mileage makes champions...

The more and harder you train the stronger you will be come race season. Obviously you need to avoid overtraining, but the basic premise remains.

Scrumple

make the miles count more...

no junk ones, push on!

Tom Butcher

150 miles sounds OK - work it in to a it of a programme though with some kind of progression rather than just going out and doing 150 miles a week of the same stuff all Winter.

By racing if you mean road racing then think about what you need - it's not just a big engine you need to be able to handle repeated anaerobic efforts and a good sprint always come in handy.

johnsilva

150 is a good amount, especially for your first race season. It's always good to have a plan so just jot down your schedule, that ways it's easier to stick to. It is important, as Tom said above, to make sure that you progress your training so that by the end of winter, the pace of your rides is faster compared to what you stared at.

milese

Thanks for the replies.

I think 150 miles is a challenging but achievable weekly target for me that will keep me interested.

I've a series of time measured loops that I'll be monitoring myself against. Generally, I try to slog myself as much as poss so will stick with it.

kieranb

well assuming you commute 5 days a week, your suggested work outs will easily take you over the 150miles per week mark.

chill123

whether or not to ride lots of low intensity miles in the winter is a contentious issue. to some base miles provide the foundations to a race season, to others they are junk miles and a waste of time.

personally i prefer a compromise of base miles & more focused workouts. what you've mentioned sounds like a reasonable mix (intensity and length). the most important thing i find is to listen to your body and don't be afraid to back off and have an easy week if you feel a bit goosed.

there's some more info on base miles here.



j

chrisw12

Just perhaps some caution, using miles as a training metric didn't work for me and I have tried it.

The trouble is, if i set a target of say 150 miles then I would start to avoid rides with lots of climbing in them and I would also avoid taking the mountain bike out just to get the miles in. In other words my training would lack variety and variety is always good long term.

For me using TIME was a better

chill123

chris 12 - true time can be a better metric. as with most things i think it is a personal thing. i prefer looking back and seeing how many miles i've ridden rather than hours. not sure why but it gives me more sense of achievement and motivation.

oldwelshman

Scrumple wrote:

make the miles count more...

no junk ones, push on!

I have always wonderred what junk miles were? I did not think there was such a thing?
Anyway no need to push in winter just long steady rides are fine.

SBezza

chill123 wrote:

whether or not to ride lots of low intensity miles in the winter is a contentious issue. to some base miles provide the foundations to a race season, to others they are junk miles and a waste of time.

Don't do them at a low intensity then. There is nothing wrong with lots of miles if you do them at the right intensity. Your training zone might have a lower HR average, but the rides should still be challenging IMO.

If you want a race season that does not include lots of ups and downs, then a strong base is required. Mixing up training is ideal though, as it keeps the body guessing, but endurance rides are needed still. (In fact they are needed all year round)

The only way a long ride is junk miles, is if it is done at recovery pace.

mclarent

Just to play devils advocate for a minute, the thing about this "junk miles" topic (which comes up consistently I know) is that it's never placed in context - like the idea of "junk miles" is an absolute. Surely the intensity of any training ride needs to be placed in the context of the individuals training goals.

For example, if my target is to ride 50 miles in 5 hours on a relatively flat course, doing a 3 hour training ride at 12mph goes a long way to hitting that. If I want to ride the etape, it's going to be less useful.

That said, my training has a real mix of stuff (including speed work, handling practice, hill reps and so on) but can be generalised as a mix of longer aerobic rides (70-80% of tested lactacte threshold, up to 5 hours, mainly 2.5-3.5 hours) and high intensity workouts (threshold work, stand alone / turbo sessions or built into am aerobic ride)

milese

Some interesting replies. I'll try and focus on doing as much of a mixed variety as I can.

chill123 wrote:

whether or not to ride lots of low intensity miles in the winter is a contentious issue. to some base miles provide the foundations to a race season, to others they are junk miles and a waste of time.

personally i prefer a compromise of base miles & more focused workouts. what you've mentioned sounds like a reasonable mix (intensity and length). the most important thing i find is to listen to your body and don't be afraid to back off and have an easy week if you feel a bit goosed.

there's some more info on base miles here.



j

65% of max HR - no thanks.

Garz

I wouldn't say junk miles were bad at all, if I'm not pushing that hard it could be a stretch the legs day (which is beneficial) or it's a tone up session to shed the weight pre-season. All this hard man we must train at breakneck speeds at high intensity is merely macho nonsense.

8)

neeb

I do almost the opposite of long easy winter miles, because the climate where I am pretty much rules out riding outdoors for much of the winter. So from about now until spring I do 3 or 4 sessions a week on the VR trainer (tacx fortius). These are usually pretty intense, going at about 85-93% of HRmax for about an hour. When the spring comes I can fly up hills but it takes me about 6 weeks to build the endurance back to be able to maintain good speeds over longer distances. The end result seems to work more or less though.

vorsprung

I do 150 miles a week in commuting and then if I get the chance do a long ride at the weekend

This time of year I don't bother with "training" as I have no events coming up in 10 weeks time

In the spring I try and add workouts that aren't just endurance. My commute to work is fairly hilly. Coming back is somewhat flatter

Last year had a twice a week routine of warm up on hill #1, get the HR up, attack it. hill #2 ride up it at full speed. hill #3 all out effort, try and beat the time up it. The hills are not very long ( #1 is 100m ascent, #2 and #3 50m) but it was a nice little workout. The same day I'd ride back home at a good speed and try and beat my time for the whole trip.

You said

65% of max HR - no thanks.

not training for a 24 hour TT then

jgsi

vorsprung wrote:

I do 150 miles a week in commuting and then if I get the chance do a long ride at the weekend

The OP wants to race next season, so starting a structured plan now is a good idea... and no, riding at 65% isnt going to do him a lot of use except for maybe 1 ride a week as easy/recovery/chilled Sunday club run.

rdt

neeb wrote:

I do almost the opposite of long easy winter miles, because the climate where I am pretty much rules out riding outdoors for much of the winter. So from about now until spring I do 3 or 4 sessions a week on the VR trainer (tacx fortius). These are usually pretty intense, going at about 85-93% of HRmax for about an hour. When the spring comes I can fly up hills but it takes me about 6 weeks to build the endurance back to be able to maintain good speeds over longer distances. The end result seems to work more or less though.

Not radically different to what I have in mind.

Now, I'm not training for anything specific, other than to climb my local hills faster, close the gap a bit on a stronger riding mate, and be fitter for another French mountains trip in the summer.

Cycling in ropey winter weather is not my idea of fun. So, for the next several months, my regime will mainly involve the turbo, doing a mixture of tempo and threshold(+) sessions (e.g. variations on 2x20 and various sessions from Pete Read's White Book), 3-4 turbo sessions per week, all done in under an hour, with a training diary and rear-wheel speedo (Kurt "power" computer) to measure progress. Plus a hilly ride of 1.5 - 2.5 hrs, at whatever pace I fancy, whenever the weather gods smile. If no ride, then extra turbo.

Longer stints in the saddle can wait until spring time.

Sliver Fox

1st year of doing winter miles......I'm aiming for 5-6 hrs a week....if I take it at an ave of 14mph ( seems to be my current pace at top of Z2) then that's working out at 84 miles per week.

I couldn't do distance as a lot of my rides go across moorland & if its any day like yesterday, then the wind could mean I'm out for about 10 hrs to get my distance!

No surprise...cycling past Europes biggest wind farm!!!! Murder. But I keep telling myself if I can push through that then anything in the spring/summer will be a breeze! Literally!

dmch2

Some of my routes West of Durham go past loads of wind turbines (I think I want past about 20 last night). So I could see from the turbines that I was directly into the wind on the 6 mile long gradual climb (with a few steeper bits) last night. Luckily I knew that I was about to come straight back on a parallel road and with the wind behind me I did 30 mph for over 4 miles

And I still managed to knock a minute of my best time despite the wind so I must be getting fitter

neeb

I suppose if the wind turbines are getting energy from the wind, they must be slowing it down in the process (decelerating the air). So they are making things easier!

dmch2

IN some small way yes

Although they're all off to the side of the road rather than on it so I got the full 'benefit' of the wind! For example going up the hill and coming back

I should put those pictures in the London topic...

peanut

I would have said an appropriate training program and total miles per week would depend on the sort of racing you intended to do next year ? If you are intent on 10 mile time trials next year then anything over 100 miles training per week through the winter is probably not going to benefit you much

You should be thinking about a total training program including nutritian. Have you thought about using a cycle race trainer to mentor you and create a program for you ?

Ruth Eyles advertises here



http://www.rutheyles.co.uk/testimonials.htm

nmcgann

dmch2 wrote:

IN some small way yes

Although they're all off to the side of the road rather than on it so I got the full 'benefit' of the wind! For example going up the hill and coming back

I should put those pictures in the London topic...

I ride up through Tow Law occasionally and I see those turbines. It certainly is windy up there

incog24

nmcgann wrote:

dmch2 wrote:

IN some small way yes

Although they're all off to the side of the road rather than on it so I got the full 'benefit' of the wind! For example going up the hill and coming back

I should put those pictures in the London topic...

I ride up through Tow Law occasionally and I see those turbines. It certainly is windy up there

Its nothing compared to climbing Crawleyside Bank in a headwind though! It is damn windy and hilly up here, definitely not an area where you can measure your training effort in miles...

paddlemyowncanoe

I'm a base miles skeptic. Plenty of club mates go for the winter miles grind and don't get any stronger, just more stuck in a rut than ever.

What part of the system is being trained? Starting from the outside in. Your bike handling? Tactical skill? Understanding your body's response to brief or extended stress? Tolerance to your position on the bike to enable race durations of x minutes/hours? Cardiac output? Respiratory capacity? Muscle mass? Muscle glycogen? Muscle cell mitochondrial density? Capillary density? Cycling economy/RER? Slow vs fast twitch?

Some of these are generally good to have and some are event specific. It sounds like you almost certainly have an excellent foundation so many factors will be pretty good and unlikely to change. Why not use your enviable time availability to work specifically those components that you don't have already? What do you need it for? Great threshold? Great 'jump' response/recover. Sprint?

You mention the time crunched approach - do you mean the Carmichael approach specifically, with periodisation and rest built into a season? You have way more hours than needed for a CTC programme. Do you have a proper powermeter? Do you know your weaknesses in power profile? Do you have a coach?

Maybe this is analytical BS which you hate and you prefer to just get out and ride? It's worth understanding your own goals and psychology though.

softlad

maybe the guy just wants to 'paddle his own canoe'...

I used to race with a guy (average 3rd cat, like me), who decided to do all his winter club runs on his MTB. Sometimes we'd pass his club out on their run coming the other way - and then about 5 minutes down the road would come this fella on his MTB having been dropped earlier. I think he got dropped on most runs, but he always went the distance.

Anyway, by half way through next season, he'd already made 2nd cat and was well on the way to 1st. There was nothing particularly scientific about his winter training - other than the fact that he ended up suffering on practically every ride he did on a bike which was heavier and much slower than everyone else's.

This was back in the days before power meters, but I'm sure the principle still applies - with or without the science...

SBezza

paddlemyowncanoe wrote:

I'm a base miles skeptic. Plenty of club mates go for the winter miles grind and don't get any stronger, just more stuck in a rut than ever.

Maybe they are not doing the high quality intensity after having put down a good foundation.

Base miles (and not LSD miles) should be looked at as building a solid foundation to underpin all the quality interval sessions you do nearer the start of the race season. Endurance rides ideally will be done throughout the year, as the intensity and racing will slowly erode this foundation.

If you neglect the base work, you just might find your season very up and down in terms of performance. There are physiological adaption that occur at this level, that may not happen as much at higher levels. IIRC some of these adaptions occur at time thresholds of greater than 3 to 4 hours, if you can do repeated sessions of this duration at a high tempo level then all well and good, but normally for this duration you will have to pull back on the intensity.